


How to win an argument

by noclue_noidea



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Animal Metaphors, Batman References, Cat, Costume Party, Dog - Freeform, M/M, slightly cracky, velociraptor - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 05:18:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1456909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noclue_noidea/pseuds/noclue_noidea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will goes to a costume party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Bryan Fuller recently said in an interview that Mason Verger was written as being a bit like the Joker to Hannibal’s Batman. That thought bubbled in my head until it gave birth to something that was originally cracky as all hell before devolving into… this.
> 
> Since English is not my first language, I'll be grateful if you would tell me of any mistake you find.

He was going to regret this.

Will self-consciously adjusted his clawed gloves. He could do this. He used to face gawking students every day; he faced serial killers on a regular basis. Hell, he was having one-on-one intimately drawn-out conversations with a _cannibal_ these days. He could survive this.

Still, when he walked through the doors and found himself in the middle of what looked like a palace hall that had just been invaded by hordes of cartoon characters, he froze.

God, he was glad he kept his glasses on.

Swallowing, he moved forward – or more exactly shuffled forward –, purposefully avoiding looking anyone in the eye, the mask, or the make-up. Already he felt oppressed. There was music – elegant, classical, but alas half-drown by the buzzing cacophony of hundreds of people talking at the same time in little wandering groups. The lighting flowing from the beautiful lamps made the colors of the costumes almost vibrate with intensity. Will had to look away with a shudder when a man in a bright purple suit with a green shirt – a green shirt! – waltzed past him in a burst of shrill laughter.

Fortunately, Will was saved. A strong hand fell down on his shoulder, and drew back immediately at his nervous jump. Will turned to see Jack Crawford smiling down at him. He barely kept from crying out in relief at the FBI agent’s choice of attire: a brown raincoat and fedora hat.

“Good evening, Will,” said Jack. “I’m happy you could come. I had my doubts right until I saw you.”

“Well, it’s for charity, Jack. I’m not _that_ asocial.”

“Could have fooled me. You looked like you were going to run like a rabbit for a second there. Here, take that.” Jack handed him a glass of champagne. “I know you’re more of a whisky kind of guy, but this is good stuff.”

“Thanks.” Will gulped down half his drink. “Anyway, how are they supposed to raise money for crime victims if they spend so much already on food, drink, and whatever this place is?”

“Oh, you know how these things work, it’s mostly about publicity. Plus there’s the whole wealthy Baltimore socialite here, ready to open their wallets to make themselves look good. You can give whatever you want to their little ‘bank’, over there. The rest is just a pretext to see everyone wearing ridiculous outfits. And by the way, what are you supposed to be?”

Will bristled a bit. “I’m a cat. Isn’t it obvious?”

“I’m sorry to break it to you, but you look like a underaged Hell’s Angel who fooled around with his mother’s make-up.”

Will heroically resisted the urge to use his black gloves to wipe the whiskers off his face. “I couldn’t find a catsuit, so I just put on some leather pants and jacket a friend gave me a long time ago. I was probably still a teen at that time.”

“That explains why all the ladies are looking at you like that.”

Will blushed furiously. Okay, he really shouldn’t have come – or at least he shouldn’t have come with tight trousers a size too small. And it was _hot_ in there…

“What about those?” asked Jack, pointing to Will’s hair.

“I just glued two bits of leather to an old headset.”

“Oh, these are _ears_?”

“I’m going to go now, Jack.”

Jack stopped him, laughing. “I’m kidding, Will. Your costume is not that bad. I mean, what do you thing I’m supposed to be?”

Will eyed him wearily. “Inspector Gadget?”

Jack nodded. “I’ll go with that. The truth is I didn’t have any idea, so I just put on whatever I could find in my closet.”

“Aren’t we supposed to come as what we’re not?”

“Well, that entirely depends on what people think they are, doesn’t it?”

Before Will could answer, Price and Zeller suddenly appeared in front of them, and he just had to gape. Price was wearing a tuxedo, complete with black bowtie and pocket handkerchief. Zeller was almost completely disappearing under a scarecrow costume. Both were beaming like little kids at Christmas.

“Hey, look who decided to show up!” cried Zeller, and Will had the distinct impression he had already drunk more than his share of the champagne.

“Yeah, that’s our murder kitty!” added Price. Seeing actual murder in Will’s eyes, he added at once: “That means I won the bet!”

Zeller snorted. “You bet he would show up in a dog costume!”

“Well, it’s still a furry. Give it up!”

“What are _you_ supposed to be?” asked Will, genuinely curious.

“He says he’s James Bond,” answered Zeller. “But I maintain he looks much more like a penguin than a smooth lady-killer spy, what do you think? As for me I’m obviously the opposite of my urbane, elegant self in real life.”

“Says the man with no brain. Come on, let’s go settle that bet.”

The two men wandered off. Now that he felt a bit better, Will could notice other familiar people in the crowd. There was Leonard Braver, his one-time lawyer, who apparently decided to don one of these greek laughing/crying masks that always creeped Will out. Kade Purnell walked by, sparing an icy glance at Jack, which together with her ninja/assassin getup didn’t seem to put the man well at ease.

“She actually looks more natural than usual,” he commented dryly.

A familiar laugh drew Will’s attention towards a bombshell of a woman whose revealing green dress daringly brought out the red of her curls – “Oh my god it’s Freddie Lounds,” he said, horrified.

Jack turned around to see. “Oh, yes, I saw her earlier. I don’t know what she’s supposed to be.”

“My guess is it’s a salad. Who else is there?”

“Well, Alana was here earlier, but I think she went to sit in a quiet corner or something; she told me the champagne was getting to her head.”

“What is she dressed like?”

“A sort of toga. She told me it was to represent the Pythia, you know, the Oracle of Dephi. She also told me the Pythia was allegedly stoned all the time, so I guess it fits her – as what she’s not, I mean. She came here with Hannibal.”

There was a beat. These last few weeks, bringing up Hannibal in any conversation meant bringing up horrible, deadly ghosts as well. Will didn’t feel so hot, suddenly. Yet he went on, forcing his voice into mundane curiosity: “What is he dressed as?”

Jack shrugged. “No idea. I think he just put on the least colorful of his three-piece suits. I guess he’s playing a playboy millionnaire or something. I don’t know where he is right now; he was with me earlier, then he just disappeared.”

“He tends to do that, doesn’t he?”

The two men glared at each other for a few seconds. Then Will stepped back. “I’ll see if I can find him.”

Jack nodded. “Good luck. I’m probably not staying too long myself.” He pointed towards one of the waiters, noticeably older and more severe-looking than the others. “The butler over there is creeping me out. I think he’s here to check if no-one gets drunk and does a strip-tease or something. Good night, Will.”

“Good night, Jack.”

With that, Will turned on his heels and valiantly marched into the crowd.

It was no easy task, but he managed to squeeze through the bigger bunch of colorful socialites to find himself in a quieter corner. Open doors led to a balcony, but before he could pass them, a flash of black and red caught his eyes.

There she was, sitting on a chair, all alone. The beautiful harlequin costume and meticulously applied make-up did nothing to hide the haunted look in her eyes. The artificial arm peeked out, stiff and lifeless, from her left sleeve.

Will didn’t hesitate. He went and sat down next to her.

“Hello, Miriam.”

The smile she gave him could have been the mask Leonard Braver was wearing.

“Hello, Will.”

“How are you?”

“Fine. I’m fine.”

Silence. Then: “Did you come alone?”

“… A friend brought me. She told me it would be good for me to socialize.”

Silence. Then: “You’re not socializing.”

A beat. “I’m still seeing more people than for the last two years.”

Will laughed at that, and so did she. For a moment the light came back in her eyes. Uncharacteristically, he wanted to take and squeeze her hand, but he didn’t know how she would take it. So he just smiled at her – a real smile, the kind he only gave his dogs.

“Do you want me to keep you company?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you. I don’t feel so bad, actually. I think I’m going to go and find my friend.”

He watched her stand up. She looked like he felt: raw, exposed, and steely. “Thank you,” she said again. “Have a good evening.”

“I will.”

He watched her disappear through the crowd. He hadn’t known her two years before, when she vanished, but at this instant he understood a bit of the pain that had eaten away Jack’s heart.

It took him a few more seconds to muster the courage to get up. Yet when he did, he felt more clear-headed than he had all evening.

* * *

 

 

He found Hannibal on the balcony.

He was standing in the shadows, alone, silent. His eyes were dark and the ghostly light of the outdoor lamps outlined the sharpness of his face. He didn’t move when Will approached, but Will felt his attention shift, like a crocodile’s eye opening. All the warmth had disappeared.

Will stepped close to him, reciting the list in his mind. Cassie. Marissa. Sutcliffe. Georgia. Abigail. Beverly. Chilton. Miriam. That was not all. But that was enough.

Yet even now he felt the pull, a deadly attraction that brought him even closer, step after step, to the man in the shadows.

“Hello, Will.”

“Hello, Dr. Lecter.”

“I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I wasn’t sure either. You know it’s not my type of… event.”

“Yet here you are.”

“Yes.” Will looked right into Hannibal’s eyes. “I admit… I just wanted to know what your costume would be.”

Hannibal smiled. “I just came as an ordinary man.”

“That’s cheating a bit, isn’t it?”

“‘Come as you are not’ does leave a lot of freedom for interpretation. Would you consider me an ordinary man, Will?”

Will scoffed loudly. “No. Oh, no. You’re… you’re truly _exceptional_ , Dr. Lecter.”

If Hannibal had been the one wearing a cat costume, he would have been purring. As he was, an ‘ordinary man’, he just basked in the compliment. Will had the distinct impression of petting a lenient tiger. The feeling of awe and power he got from it frightened him. Yet he kept going, like a moth to a flame.

“As far as you are concerned,” continued Hannibal, “your costume is not entirely in keeping with the rules either. You are, after all, fairly closer to a cat, in terms of temperament, than to, say, a dog.”

“I am a dog-person.”

“By that you mean you like dogs. Your personality is more akin to that of a feline.”

“We’re not having this conversation.”

Ten minutes later, Hannibal was walking Will back to his car, and they were still having that conversation. “Will, you are being stubborn right now, which is a feline trait.”

“It’s obvious you’ve not been around my dogs long enough. I should bring them in therapy.”

Hannibal cringed, but went on undeterred. “You are independent, resilient, you keep to yourself, you do not trust people. You have a vibrant internal life and a very personal – yet inescapable – elegance and beauty.”

“You _really_ love cats, don’t you.”

“Yes, I do.”

Will stopped walking. He had a reason to: they had just arrived to his car. But if he wanted to be honest with himself, that was not at all why he stopped.

His ears were ringing. One didn’t need to be an empath to understand something that was basically being written in giant flashy letters in the sky. One didn’t need to be a good chess player to see a golden opportunity for a move when he saw one. Will had full knowledge of what happened when a moth got too close to a flame. For once though, he’d like to dream he could be a moth full of water.

Still, it didn’t explain why he did what he did next. “Well, if I _was_ a cat, I’ll conclude this conversation with a bit of purring; but since I’m _not_ a cat, I’ll just do _this_.”

One hand around his nape brought Hannibal’s face down to Will’s level; the other on his jaw kept him from moving away. His brain full of white noise, Will swooped in, opened his mouth, and licked a long stripe up Hannibal’s skin, from the corner of his mouth to the jutting end of his cheekbone. Then he sputtered, turned around, stumbled on his own feet, got in his car and sped away, leaving Hannibal stunned and completely speechless on the pavement.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will and Hannibal resume their argument.

Will was sitting in Hannibal Lecter's waiting room.

It had been two days since he last saw his psychiatrist. Two days since they talked about dogs, cats, temperaments, and since Will's tongue made contact with the good doctor's face.

The main emotion flooding Will's mind at the moment was, understandably, embarrassment, with a thick undercurrent of utter confusion. The fact that he still remembered the taste of the Chesapeake Ripper's cheek didn't help. (His aftershave really _was_ much better than his own.) It was like being haunted by a tiny ghost sitting in his mouth. His hands had touched the other's neck, his nose had grazed the skin, but his tongue had the best memory of all.

How would Hannibal welcome him? The man with the never-ending wardrobe of three-piece suits, the therapist of impeccable standing, the _serial killer_ whose specialty was transforming rude people into pâtés... Somehow Will doubted he would shrug this off. His best bets, at the moment, were on opposite sides of the reaction spectrum: either Hannibal was going to feign complete and utter ignorance, or he was going to pounce on Will with a well-sharpened knife and probably a pun.

The strange thing was, the second option frightened Will far less than the first one. At least with the second one the whole matter of their relationship would be definitely clarified.

If Hannibal was to let the whole thing slide, however...

It was at that precise place in his reflexions that Will realized he felt very much the same way he had years ago, when preparing to ask a girl to the prom.

It was also precisely at that moment that Hannibal opened the door.

* * *

 

He didn't wield a blade of any kind, so Will's anxiety went from 'blubbering' to 'boiling hot'. He jumped out of his chair, almost knocking it over, and strode past the smiling cannibal with such a frozen grin on his face Will was sure he looked like he was having a stroke. Fortunately Hannibal could, in fact, see the difference between a nervous grimace from hell and a call for help from Death's door, and didn't say anything.

At first.

“Please sit down, Will. I am sorry to have kept you waiting; if I had known you were already there, I would have let you in.”

Will sat down, silently seething. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind Hannibal had known he was there.

“No problem,” he said. He was proud of the way he managed to look the good doctor in the eye.

Hannibal sat down in his own chair, and with that, the session officially started.

“Maybe we should begin with what went through your mind before we... parted, two days ago.”

Of course. Will found himself somewhat relieved to be able to jump so fast into the fray. It didn't keep him from reddening like a schoolgirl or stammering around his tongue – why did this thing exist anyway? it only brought trouble –, but he felt slightly better.

“There is really nothing to discuss, doctor. I just drank too much. I'm not used to champagne.”

“I think you're trying to evade the subject, Will. I hardly noticed any alcohol on your breath, and as I'm sure you remember, you got remarkably close to me during your cheeky gesture.”

_That_ got Will all fired up. “You _do_ love your puns, don't you? Listen, there really is nothing to talk about. I was cranky, I was wearing a ridiculous costume, and you were annoying me with your insistence in comparing me to a cat. I wanted to shut you up, that's all. It was weird for both of us and I'd rather forget about it.” He didn't say he was sorry. Strange, how he felt compelled not to lie about that.

If he thought Hannibal was going to drop the subject, though, he was cruelly disappointed. “Why were you so offended at the idea of being compared to a cat?”

Will didn't let him go on. “Why don't you tell me how _you_ would react if _I_ compared you to an animal?”

Hannibal blinked. “It hardly seems fair to turn the discussion on me when you were the one who dressed himself as an animal. Nonetheless, this could be useful for your therapy. What animal would you say I am?”

When Will had decided to resume his therapy sessions with a cannibalistic serial killer who had scrambled his brains around, had him thrown in jail and had made him responsible for two separated instances of attempted murder, he knew it was going to lead to some pretty tense and uncomfortable situations.

He hadn't imagined _this_.

“I don't know. I don't really think about it.”

Then he met Hannibal's eyes, dark and smoldering with challenge.

Suddenly, it became essential to tell the truth.

“At first it would be a tiger, I guess. Or a lion. Or a wolf without a pack. Something like that.”

“A big, solitary predator.”

“Yes.”

“Yet you would change your mind?”

“They don't exactly fit, you know? Maybe something more... unusual. Like... like a velociraptor.”

“A scientifically accurate one or one from Jurassic Park?”

Beat. “You’ve seen Jurassic Park?”

“Yes. All three movies. Does it surprise you?”

“You don’t seem the type to enjoy that kind of movies.” _You’re the type to cheer the dinos on, don’t you?_

“Everybody was talking about it, so I decided I might as well educate myself.”

“About how scientifically accurate the movies are?”

“Real velociraptors were much smaller and presumably covered in feathers.”

“Not really you, then.”

Hannibal made his facial equivalent of a noncommital shrug.

“Did you enjoy them?”

“Adequately enough.”

“You know they're going to shoot a fourth one?”

“I heard of it. It sounds alarming.”

“Yeah.”

“...”

“If they're social animals, how do they show affection?”

For the life of him Will would not have been able to answer why he asked that question.

“Velociraptors?”

“Yes. I mean, do they purr, lick, or bite? Biting would seem obvious, since they're close to birds and birds do that thing with their beak.”

Realizing what exactly he was saying, Will looked at Hannibal looking at him. For a brief moment he felt submerged with dread, but Hannibal just gave him an infinitesimal smirk.

So Will went on, choosing to leave the raptors behind as quickly as possible. “But that doesn't work either. You're not an ordinary creature like a tiger, a wolf or even a raptor; they're all real animals, or they were at one time. You're more like... like... a black stag with raven feathers.”

He could feel Hannibal's stare on him, peaceful, almost languid. He swallowed. _Really you're not even that,_ he thought darkly. _You're that monster with the dead eyes._ But that, he couldn't tell. The wendigo was the stuff of nightmares, and it shouldn't be that obvious, how much Hannibal scared him.

“I am flattered, Will, that you consider me too exceptional to be anything else than the stuff of legend.” The deep voice was like a purr.

Will shrugged. “Your stag is carnivorous, of course.”

“Of course. Like Diomedes's mares.”

Will snorted. “I’m a tiny Hercules and you’re my carnivorous stag task.”

“I hope I'm more than a task.”

Will looked him right in the eye. “You're the whole freaking greek pantheon.”

And Hannibal's gaze devoured him whole.

* * *

 

After that, only a few minutes were left, and Will soon stood up to take his leave. His hands were steady, his mind clear. Hannibal, he realized for the umpteenth time, was indeed an excellent therapist. If only he wasn't... whatever he was, tiger, velociraptor or _thing_ from outer space.

Will felt so much better he didn't even hesitate when, as he was about to go through the door, the good doctor stopped him : “One moment, Will. I have something for you.”

Will turned, and Hannibal, slowly, bent down to capture his lower lip between his teeth. He bit it very gently, almost reverently, sharp edges grazing the tender flesh.

Then he straightened, eyes blazing, said “Goodbye, Will,” and closed the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand... that's it. Hope you enjoyed.
> 
> There might be a true sequel soon, but it will probably be much darker. (And with a higher rating.)


End file.
